Nature Journal: Part 2

            On September 20th, I walked from my house to the concrete patio in my backyard. The previous tenants of the house left us some patio furniture that my roommates and I have found quite useful. As a matter of fact, it has grown to be one of my favorite places to sit and relax after a long week of class. My backyard is not all that pretty. The grass is usually long and yellow looking. My house backs up to overgrown tree-line that has consumed a chain-link fence. All the trees appear to be saplings from larger trees elsewhere that have just somehow found their way into my backyard. They are growing in all different directions and some even wrap around one another. As if that were not enough, the trees are tangled in some type of vine that makes a fence of its own. If you focus your ears you can start to hear the sounds that come from beyond the fence. The sound of cicadas is overwhelming. It almost makes it hard to hear anything else. However, if you listen closely you can start to hear the sound of crickets and if you are lucky the sound of squirrels climbing through the branches. I often look for signs of life closer to the house. Along the roofline, there are dozens of wasp’s nests. They swarm angrily but are thankfully far enough away not to be considered a threat. I start to imagine what kind of life lurks beneath my overgrown backyard. The grass is almost knee height at this point which means any kind of being could be living below. I am always surprised to see the amount if lizards that call the brick wall of my house a home. However, the number of lizards makes me think there must be even more insects for them to feed on. During that afternoon I did not see any birds or animals larger than a rodent, but I did hear the sounds of something else coming from behind the fence. My roommate has previously seen a family of raccoons and we came across a dead coyote the other day on the street across from our house. I find the fact that there is so much life around my house which is located in one of the biggest cities in America fascinating. People often go on with their everyday life without ever realizing there is another world around them. A world right beneath their eyes. Even myself, who took the time to seek out this other world knows that there are parts, even those beneath the grass line and beyond the fence that I have still yet to discover.